Tsaparang
by Sunruner
Summary: Speculative Oneshot for DD. When one of the Eight takes his students out to examine the effects of Alchemy, they come across some chilling results... I'm prepared to be wrong! Title/Spelling edited. Stupid name.


**Pure speculation for Dark Dawn written to "Mind Heist" from the Inception OST.**

**I am completely prepared to be utterly wrong.**

**For eff's sake, this was up for like 3 minutes before I noticed the spelling error.**

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_**Tsaparang**_

"I never thought of you as the scholarly type."

"How about Explorer?"

That got an admirable chuckle out of the men behind him, and Felix turned his head northward in the direction they were travelling. The vast white tundra was painful to the eyes, and each member of the small party was outfitted with tinted glass goggles to protect them from the glare of the sun.

_'And when I was a boy, this was nothing but an abyssmal void.'_ It was amazing how much things had changed, and for all the deaths, all the storms, all the tragedies, he still couldn't stop himself from feeling an ounce of satisfaction tucked between the layers of guilt.

They had left Prox nine days ago, one of the town catographers tagging along with them in their quest to map and examine the recession of the void. Mars lighthouse had vanished behind them over the southern horizon, and still there was more land to cover. At times over the years Felix had ventured this way, had investigated the massive earthquakes which had forced new, raw folds of crust and earth up into the continuing crown of mountains which cut across the tundra. Nothing grew nor lived this far north, and even if the life was moving forward Felix had never yet come so far.

"I can't believe none of this existed just a few years ago..." The Cartographer said, coming up next to Felix and making the comment again for the party to hear. Most of them were young men, like the map-maker, and the Venusian just grinned and laughed at them heartily.

"Few years? A few years ago you boys were playing with sticks and icicles, no." He shook his head, pulling his grey scarf down from over his nose so he could speak to the young Proxian. "This started happening back when your parents were still too shy to hold hands." Feeling the stray flecks of snow and ice catch in the salt-and-pepper whiskers covering his jaw, Felix drew a hand across the cold water and wiped it away before it could chill his skin too much. He'd grown used to the northern lifestyle, years trickling by like sand in his palm. He was happy to be here, travelling with his students.

Another day passed, fading into the freezing tundra night. They hadn't devised a proper name for this band of wasteland North of the Lighthouse, no old records or lore extended so far into the past as to give them a hint. Only Felix's inner compass, the string connecting him to Venus Lighthouse, kept him from being lost in the endless, unbroken white. The young men relied on Mars for the same guiding point. The stars were unfamiliar here.

"Tomorrow, we'll start our return." They would cut east across the tundra and see what could be seen of the world, then come down back within sight of the Lighthouse and return home to Prox. That was the plan, but like a distinct reminder of his past travels, Felix half-knew it wouldn't quite work out that way. The Lemurian ship was never quite where you beached it, and mountains in this age had a habit of moving.

The problem, however, was not the navigation.

"Did anyone see trees last night?"

"You mean in our dreams?" Felix joked, watching the young men pack up the cooking supplies and pick up the very last of their burnable wood. It was always easier for Mars Adepts to keep a piece of kindling on fire for a night than simply burn the air, but now they were almost out of firewood. They'd survive however, life always sprung up on the mountains first.

"No, I mean over there, across the snow."

"What are you talking about? Let me see." The chuckles kept up as Felix reached his hand out for the telescope. He'd been floored the first time one of them had found its way into Prox, struck with nostalgia for his younger years and Piers' prized ocular device. He brought the cartographer's scope to his eye now and looked out in the direction the young map-maker was pointing.

"Honest! There's something out there!" He was saying, the others laughing and telling him to help them pack.

"Hurry and put that away." Felix's voice cut through the chatter. He quickly turned around and faced them. It was nothing but a black smudge on the horizon, but... "Let me hold onto this, Nicho, for now lets put this place behind us."

They didn't go east, he'd learned a long time ago not to doubt his senses. The land beneath the snow may have been virgin territory, but it was still as savvy as its ancient spawn in Vale. It told him to go home, and it told him to get there fast.

He ran them hard, harder than he had on any one of their prior expeditions. He knew he shouldn't have been putting so much emphasis on speed, that he was only scaring them by looking over his shoulder so much throughout the day and always taking watch on the north side of camp at night, but he did it anyways. To many undead attacks, too many curious bears, to much of everything in his life to let him doubt the anxiety creeping up between his shoulders every time he looked north.

The black spot didn't go away, in fact it got bigger. On their second day since turning back, the boys began looking around as well, the chatter died down and they didn't try to pitch camp before the sun had half-set. The lively talk turned to quiet muttering, and on the fourth day it was silence from sun-up till down.

On the third day they began to hear a low noise, buzzing and persistent, never quieting even when the sun fell and they passed an uneasy night tucked close together in the snow.

On the fourth day, Felix could look back and see individual black dots moving between them larger, constant ones. He could only see this with the telescope, but pointedly kept it to himself. They should have been rushing out to meet someone coming across the ice towards Prox, but instead his instincts said run.

Five days since turning back, four from the gates of Prox... they were overcome.

The noise was the sound of the gears propelling their rides along, metal beasts which devoured the snow in front of them with grinding, whirling teeth and underbellies that churned up the exposed black shale behind. Four of those beasts overcame them, and Felix's fleeting hope of a peaceful encounter was dashed when the first rider stood up with a spear raised over his head.

"SCATTER!" His voice shot through the cold air, "Drop everything! GO!" Scared young men, he heard the crunch of snow under the roar of the machines and harried voices as everything was pulled off their backs and abandoned in the snow.

Felix didn't run, his burden hitting the frozen ground as he spread his gloved hands, facing north.

"You gave me this strength, Venus. Now let me use it." A very short prayer, and he saw one of the riders make a motion with his hands, the two riders on the flanks moving to the sides so they could pass by him.

No.

"Odyssey." He spread his arms and felt the word unlock the power humming in his veins. The sky darkened and then flared with a brilliant gold light, rods of pure psynergy searing the air from his palms like two swords flung like toy knives. There was a scream and a mechanical clatter before he brought his hands back in front and swept one booted foot across the top of the snow.

The earth exploded behind him, a heavy V-shaped wall rising behind him and chasing down his scattering party to protect them for at least a short while. Another sword of Ragnarok tore from his chest and impaled the ground between the two oncoming riders, one veering out of the way while the other was flung from the device and quickly got back up.

Fear stabbed him as they countered, the long-forgotten pain of electicity zapping his nerves and almost dropping him onto the cold ground. He only kept his feet because instinct braced his legs as a gust of wind drove him back until his body hit the hastily-erected wall. There was hot blood on his face after a whirling blade caught him over the eye.

Cracks formed and split the ground under the tossed machine in front of him, the rider quickly jumping away from the wreck as hot, burning light shone up through the cracks and pummelled the metal and gears with chunks of rock and debris. He couldn't see or hear the first two he'd attacked, and took it out on the last one who still had a seat on their ride.

Another burst of gold light and a spire of living rock propelled itself from the ground, but the rider was moving already and veered again to avoid the obstacle, one fist pulled back before gold light burned through the air back at where Felix was standing. Another sword- smaller than his own, but no less deadly.

He took three steps back, his form phasing into the stone wall he'd built before re-forming on the other side. Adrenaline burned away the nausea as he spread his hands down low in front of him and dropped his head. He wore through the onslaught of shattering stone as the blast he had run from demolished the barrier.

The earth trembled and shook under the ice, then it exploded in a violent spider-web of excitement. The air itself seemed to vibrate as the quake grew and grew, another two metal blades finding flesh under the thick wool and leather covering his chest. Great slabs of stone wider than he was tall rose and crashed down like so many waves in the ocean.

One of them pointed something at him, he didn't know what it was, and the three loud bursts it made in the air didn't help him figure it out. Three centres of pain burst to life in his chest, his inner senses telling him his lungs had been punctured- what had hit him? It had gone right through!

_'I can die for them.'_ And for that reason, he didn't waste his breath asking who these people were or what they were doing. His knees buckled and hot blood poured down his chest and back, confusion warping his thoughts before the fog was burned away by conviction. It didn't matter if he knew: he wouldn't be able to tell anyone. Warn anyone. Blood welled up when he spoke.

"Did you ever see the Golden Sun?"

_'Judgement. I've always trusted you.' _Old men are for dying.

Head back and arms down, he let the blue sky fill his eyes before closing them. He touched the part of himself that had '_changed'_ during the Rising, and he told it to grow and carry him away. The Gold light burned away his skin and devoured his mind, but that didn't matter as he watched the sky-armored angel take to the sky with a lion's roar.

The last word he understood: Tsaparang.

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**I'm completely ready to be wrong about this, and it doesn't bother me in the least. I started listening to Mind Heist and HAD to write something with flashy psynergy in it, however brief XD**

**Also, Felix's death at the end there is totally my response for the complete lack of information we've received so far about him in Dark Dawn Q.Q**


End file.
